Stephen was on a mission to make his mother as comfortable as possible. ‘Whatever you need, Ma.’ When he wasn’t in college he and his girlfriend Charlene, a quiet, tall, bright, preppy type, did the grocery shopping or they dropped Bernard to his various activities or Jeff to the gym. The mother of Jeff’s mate Specs O’Leary (named for the oversized spectacles he wore) collected him from basketball and arrived with baked goods once a week. Ryan got the bus everywhere, stating he was his own man. The kids were taking care of each other and themselves. Lenny hired someone to clean the house and he took over cooking in the evenings when he came home from work. Her job was to get better. He bought her expensive creams and healing ointments; he bought her sexy silk pyjamas. One evening he’d arrive home with flowers, the next chocolates and the next a novel, and so on. He spoiled her. He also tended to her; he spread the creams and ointments when she couldn’t raise her arms to do it herself. He knew her wounds and navigated around her ports better than she did. He never shied away, never made her feel less of a woman; he embraced their new reality and all the while she waited for the other shoe to drop.

She spent that first month propped up in bed or on the sofa or the big armchair with good back support, initially quite disabled without the use of her arms and definitely traumatised by the damage she’d sustained. She was fragile and weak and racked with pains. Another two weeks passed and she felt stronger, more capable; she could use her arms again. She was still sore but she felt more like herself. She was lucky in that her surgeon had been able to place a large volume of saline into her tissue expander during the surgery; she had been warned she could return from surgery with two empty sacs, but once the swelling went down it became obvious why she retained her ports under her arms – she needed to be filled again. She went to her doctor’s clinic three times to have her breasts filled; each time, Lenny took the day off work and she tried her best to be brave as the needle went in and the pressure built under her skin. He took her to lunch afterwards if she felt able. He tried to make the best of it. She knew she was lucky but still waited for that bloody other shoe to drop.